Happy birthday, activist Lydia Maria Child

It is the birthday of Lydia Maria Child (1802), who was an activist against slavery, for women’s rights, and for Indian rights. She wrote fiction and non-fiction books on her causes, edited an anti-slavery newspaper, the National Anti-Slavery Standard (1840), started the first children’s magazine in America, Juvenile Miscellany (1826) and wrote domestic manuals.  Among her books are Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times (1824), The Indian Wife (1828), The Mother’s Book (1831), An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833), and The Freedmen’s Book (1865). For all that, she may be best remembered for her Thanksgiving poem, Over the River and Through the Wood (1844).